Part I set 'em up, but Part II knocked 'em down—in style.
The stranded crew work hard to survive and try to befriend their neighbors, once again showing us how dedicated Starfleet is to fighting by communicating, not with weapons. We've seen this before, though it is always a bit fun to watch.
But the real meat of this episode is in Lon Suder's cloak-and-dagger act with The Doctor. I've already gushed enough about Brad Dourif, in my review of Part I, but can we just stop to appreciate Robert Picardo? (Oh, all right, we can also appreciate Brad Dourif again. He deserves it, after all.) The scenes where the two of them play together are this episode's heart.
I find myself agreeing with @LeftHandedGuitarist once more, that the resolution on this episode came rather too quickly. But that said, I've noticed that a lot of the shows I'm watching at present (most of them, like Star Trek: Voyager, are from the previous century) wrap things up in this fashion. For better or worse, television writing in that grand old episodic era was really dependent on keeping the tension going through the very last commercial break—after which there was little time left for dénouement. Thus, wrapping up "too quickly" is a phenomenon not limited to this episode, or even Star Trek in general. It afflicts (if one can call it an affliction) all television made in that certain era before continuous, season-long plot arcs came into vogue.
Review by dgwVIP 10BlockedParent2018-11-27T07:03:21Z
Part I set 'em up, but Part II knocked 'em down—in style.
The stranded crew work hard to survive and try to befriend their neighbors, once again showing us how dedicated Starfleet is to fighting by communicating, not with weapons. We've seen this before, though it is always a bit fun to watch.
But the real meat of this episode is in Lon Suder's cloak-and-dagger act with The Doctor. I've already gushed enough about Brad Dourif, in my review of Part I, but can we just stop to appreciate Robert Picardo? (Oh, all right, we can also appreciate Brad Dourif again. He deserves it, after all.) The scenes where the two of them play together are this episode's heart.
I find myself agreeing with @LeftHandedGuitarist once more, that the resolution on this episode came rather too quickly. But that said, I've noticed that a lot of the shows I'm watching at present (most of them, like Star Trek: Voyager, are from the previous century) wrap things up in this fashion. For better or worse, television writing in that grand old episodic era was really dependent on keeping the tension going through the very last commercial break—after which there was little time left for dénouement. Thus, wrapping up "too quickly" is a phenomenon not limited to this episode, or even Star Trek in general. It afflicts (if one can call it an affliction) all television made in that certain era before continuous, season-long plot arcs came into vogue.